HDA

Executive Coaching – Ship Broking

Business Context    

The client was referred to HDA from our American Partners, Challenger, Gray and Christmas on an outplacement programme. He joined a major ship broking company as a short term means of employment to fund his daughters’ education in the UK which will last for a further 2/3 years. After that time, the client wishes to embark on a philanthropic venture in Africa. In addition to providing a range of support on outplacement, information on coaching as a career and general career planning, the client was looking for additional 1-1 coaching on a number of personal and business related issues. This brief case study focuses only on the latter.

The ship broking company was a high pressure environment and predominately male dominated. The client held a senior management position in one of the product divisions.

Business Issues

• The client was mainly interested in making an early impact in the role in a reasonably unfamiliar environment

• The business was expanding into new areas and the client was expected to spearhead one of these initiatives

• The client was entrepreneurial by nature but was also adept at the discipline of presenting a logical argument. He was interested to understand why this approach did not always go down well in the organisation

Business Value Obtained from Coaching

• Much of the time in the three coaching sessions was spent examining the client’s natural influencing styles and exploring the use of less familiar styles in real business situations

• This naturally expanded in to a more in depth discussion around gaining empathy for other styles being used by his peers and seniors and using new techniques in practice in the workplace, specifically Active Listening

• A key exercise that gained significant personal and business value for the client was to record ‘battles won’ and ‘new things learnt’. This gave a structure to his early days at the new company and enhanced the impact he made early on.

Business Outcome